With Deedra it was always a “him.”

I took a deep breath and braced myself, knowing what I had to do and admitting it to myself. I had to call the sheriff’s department. I took one more look around, feeling the shock of the scene all over again, and patted my cheeks. But there were no tears.

Deedra was not someone you cried over, I realized as I walked swiftly out of the woods to the road. Deedra’s was a shake-your-head death-not entirely unanticipated, within the realm of possibility. Since Deedra had been in her twenties, the mere fact that she was dead should have been shocking, but there again… it wasn’t.

As I punched the number for the sheriff’s department (the cell phone had been a Christmas surprise from Jack Leeds) I felt regret about my lack of amazement. The death of anyone young and healthy should be outrageous. But I knew, as I told the dispatcher where I was-right outside the Shakespeare city limit, in fact I could see the sign from where I stood-that very few people would truly be stunned about Deedra Dean being naked, violated, and dead in a car in the woods.

Of all the people in the world, I would be the last one to blame the victim for the crime. But it was simply undeniable that Deedra had thrown herself into the victim pool with vigor, even eagerness. She must have considered her family’s money and social position life jacket enough.

After tossing the cell phone back into my car through the open window, I leaned against the hood and wondered what situation had led to Deedra’s death. When a woman has many sexual partners, the chance of her falling foul of one of them escalates, and I was assuming that was what had happened. I mulled over that assumption. If Deedra had worked in a factory that employed mostly men, would she be more likely to die than a woman who worked in a factory that employed mostly women? I had no idea. I wondered if a promiscuous man was more likely to be murdered than a chaste man.